Our gameweek 5 squad: Cole Palmer captains a 3-4-3
The engine's own 15 — a 3-4-3 projecting 62.63 points with the captain doubled, picked on six-gameweek horizon value, not one-week form.
This is the team we actually field, and it stands or falls in public. The engine optimises expected points over a discounted six-gameweek horizon on market-implied scoring rates, so every pick is a horizon bet rather than a one-fixture spike. The XI lines up 3-4-3 and projects 56.28 points before the armband; with Cole Palmer doubled that becomes 62.63.
No Haaland, by conviction rather than oversight. At his price the model wants the budget spread across three lines, and we do not pay a premium for an ownership shield. If the crowd is right about him, the consensus XI on this site owns him and will collect the evidence.
Cole Palmer wears the armband because he tops this squad's doubled projection at 12.71 — captaincy here is expected value, never narrative. Szoboszlai is vice: if the captain's match falls through, the armband moves to the next-best number, not to a hunch.
The bench, in order: 1. Sánchez, 2. E.Le Fée, 3. Bobby Thomas, 4. Shaw. It is deliberately thin — the first name is the backup keeper, and the spend sits in the XI where the points are.
The data
| # | Player | xPts | Ceiling | Captain EV | Pts/m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raya ARS | 3.62 | 8.59 | 7.23 | 0.60 |
| 2 | Tarkowski EVE | 4.66 | 11.03 | 9.32 | 0.76 |
| 3 | Virgil LIV | 3.39 | 9.40 | 6.77 | 0.52 |
| 4 | N.Williams NFODifferential | 4.81 | 11.41 | 9.61 | 0.96 |
| 5 | B.Fernandes MUN | 6.54 | 16.25 | 13.08 | 0.55 |
| 6 | Gibbs-White NFO | 6.90 | 16.75 | 13.80 | 0.86 |
| 7 | Szoboszlai LIV | 4.46 | 12.71 | 8.93 | 0.64 |
| 8 | Thiago BREDifferential | 5.31 | 13.90 | 10.62 | 0.67 |
| 9 | Evanilson BOUDifferential | 3.98 | 10.71 | 7.97 | 0.66 |
| 10 | Calvert-Lewin LEE | 6.26 | 14.78 | 12.52 | 1.04 |
| 11 | Cole Palmer CHE | 6.35 | 16.10 | 12.71 | 0.66 |
| 12 | Sánchez CHEDifferentialBench | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 13 | E.Le Fée SUNDifferentialBench | 3.17 | 8.92 | 6.33 | 0.55 |
| 14 | Bobby Thomas COVDifferentialBench | 3.20 | 9.72 | 6.40 | 0.80 |
| 15 | Shaw MUNDifferentialBench | 1.70 | 7.34 | 3.41 | 0.39 |
Bottom line
3-4-3, Cole Palmer (c), Szoboszlai vice — 62.63 projected with the armband applied.
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How we get these numbers. Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official Fantasy Premier League points table. Ceiling = the average of a player's best 15% of our 50,000 simulations — the score when his best realistic games happen, not a fantasy cap. Every figure here is machine-readable at /api/fpl/gw5/our-squad.json.